The oldest console in our library, the NES remains an overlooked system by both my wife and I since we began collecting.
With a video game collection nearing 500 games, I often point to the start of it all coming around six years ago at the start of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, when my wife and I began actively collecting games, vinyl and CDs.
Yet truthfully, you’d have to rewind all the way back to the late 1990’s to see where it all really began for me, with my first exposure to the Super Mario series on the original Nintendo Entertainment System.
While most of my earliest memories came via Super Mario All-Stars on the SNES, the original NES versions of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 still did come first – with our original NES gifted to my late grandmother, who was a huge fan of the original Super Mario trilogy.
Therefore, I almost exclusively played the SNES versions of the original Mario games for most of my early childhood, with that persisting until I developed a strong interest in the NES and what the original versions of the games looked like.
I ended up getting the NES I currently own in the summer of 2007, with my dad picking it up for me from a retro game store in the Chicago suburbs that has long been out of business.
While this allowed me to dive even deeper into the original versions of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3, I never really explored much else on the console – which could maybe be owed to the fact that neither of my parents had much experience with othre titles on the system either.
Sure, I picked up Blades of Steel and Double Dribble after hearing stories from my dad at how fun and simple old sports video games used to be – but beyond that, I still haven’t explored much on the NES, even in the last six years while actively collecting games.
To this day, my wife and I have just eight NES games in our library – accounting for a miniscule share of the 472 physical video games we own – with half of our NES games being Mario titles.
Though still not prioritized within our collection, here’s a look at three NES titles we’d love to add to our library:
1. The Legend of Zelda
While I do own (though have never played) the notoriously hard Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, it’d be great to be able to start The Legend of Zelda series from where it all began, with the eponymous debut title released in North America in August 1987.
Though it bears little resemblance to the fleshed out 3D worlds seen in every mainline Zelda game since Ocarina of Time in 1998, the original title sets the stage for the rest of the series, introducing many of the most recognizable enemies, items and gameplay elements seen in later games.
With a single playthrough often taking new players several hours to complete as opposed to the Super Mario games that could more easily be finished in a single sitting, The Legend of Zelda was one of the first games to include saving capability – making an attempt at the game feel a bit less daunting.
Beyond just wanting to see how the series began, there’s no question that The Legend of Zelda is an essential NES title, remaining a conspicuous absence from our library.
2. Kirby’s Adventure
While the Kirby series all began on the handheld Game Boy with the release of Kirby’s Dream Land in 1992, the now ubiquitous mascot made his console debut the following year with Kirby’s Adventure.
Despite its May 1993 release coming nearly two years after the SNES hit North American shelves, Kirby’s Adventure was released exclusively for the NES, acting as a late boost for the aging console.
Kirby’s Adventure expands on many of the elements introduced to players in its handheld predecessor, while its development impressively pushed the limits of a console that had been available in North America for well over seven years.
Although my lone experience with the Kirby series came with Kirby and the Forgotten Land, initially released for the Switch in March 2022, both my wife and I think it’d be great to see the series’ beginnings while chasing down the other titles released since.
3. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!
Perhaps the first blockbuster home sports video game, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! served as a glorious collaboration of the best boxer on the planet and an emerging medium of entertainment that would soon infiltrate mainstream pop culture.
Players are tasked with controlling Little Mac, an underdog boxer and main protagonist who attempts to move up the rankings of the World Video Boxing Association, with gradually more difficult opponents facing Little Mac as the game progresses.
In the original version of the game, Little Mac maneuvers his way through a slew of fighters before facing off against Mike Tyson himself – with later versions of the game removing Tyson’s likeness and replacing him with a fictional character named “Mr. Dream.”
While the standard Punch-Out!!, released in 1990 retains all of the same elements and gameplay excluding Mike Tyson, having the original 1987 release featuring Tyson feels like an essential.
For a game that had such a far-reaching cultural impact while offering an early celebrity endorsement of video games, having Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is a must for the library.
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